


Barrelhouse (On The Riverside)

by ArcanumArcanorum



Series: Dean's Top 13 Zepp Traxx [5]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: But they fix it, Canon Compliant, Case Fic, Character disability stays, DeanCas and Saileen are established, Fix-It, Happy Ending, Heaven, I don't wanna tag the monster type and give away the surprise, Just very abstract use of universal mechanics, Led Zeppelin References, M/M, Mostly DeanCas, Multi, Post-Canon, Road Trip, Slashy undertones with Benny and Victor, Song Lyrics, Strippers, TheirLoveWasReal, arguably some harmful pronoun usage, brief casual racism, canon-typical monster, everything's abstract at this point, motw, non-explicit sexual inferrences, the MCs handle it nbd
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-02
Updated: 2021-03-02
Packaged: 2021-03-15 11:27:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29807706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArcanumArcanorum/pseuds/ArcanumArcanorum
Summary: Well, there's still some loose ends in the world mythology to tie up--so for now, Dean is still managing to work a case--in heaven. (Sam may be working one on earth, too--but the full details may have to wait for another episode.) Some more endings to resolve for others along the road.Slap me with a kudos if you figure out where I sourced my music choices for chapter one.
Relationships: Benny Lafitte & Dean Winchester, Castiel/Dean Winchester, Eileen Leahy/Sam Winchester, Victor Henriksen & Dean Winchester
Series: Dean's Top 13 Zepp Traxx [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2182767
Comments: 2
Kudos: 13
Collections: Their Love Was Real: a Destiel & Saileen Fanworks Challenge





	1. Swipe Left

_ “I did it Sammy. I found it. A fate worse than death.”  _

Grimness soaked Dean’s tone, even as it emerged from Patience as the psychic medium playing channeler. Her voice tended to drop and carry familiar flints. 

She spoke from her chest as Dean did in life, but that found itself dulled.

Several worried eyes looked to Patience as a proxy; this time, Alex had made it to the affair with Claire, hoping for a chance to talk to Jody.

Jack still served as the bridge between Sam and Kaia’s hands at the far end of the table. 

_ “...Being stuck with an asshole you can’t kill.” _

A voice-to-text prompter did its’ best with Dean Winchester slang as an extra measure on a screen in front of Sam, 

and the webcam pointed over the laptop in high-res picked up Patience’s mouth movements for Eileen’s mastered lipreading

to help with her signing in a corner window back at Sam--who hadn’t mastered the skill since his recent hearing loss; 

the two methods patching over each other’s weaknesses.

Sam blinked vigorously, “It’s… heaven, what do you mean assholes you can’t kill?”

“Well, _he’s_ there,” Claire butted in, with Alex snorting across the table and Jack tucking his head to hide a grin.

_“Shaddap,”_ Dean!Patience came back. _“Okay but--there’s a story.”_

* * *

“What do you MEAN people are missing?” Dean looked on incredulously to Castiel. “It’s… heaven!”

“Yes,” Cas segued, “and they’re missing from heaven.”

“Did they slip out the back to reincarnate or something?”

“No, they were doing fine with their families and even went missing en route to expected cross-sphere visits.”

“So they went missing on the Mundi.”

Cas nodded.

“You’re… saying we have a case. In heaven.”

* * *

“I mean other things have gotten into heaven before,” Sam reasoned, “I guess we just figured with the big dogs taking care of nothing else could.”

_ “You gonna let me tell you this Sam, or write your own fanfic?”  _

...Sam cleared his throat and moved on.

* * *

“I don’t get it. You’re like, Heaven Itself. And you can’t detect what’s going on here?” Dean challenged.

Dean reviewed notes etched on a thousand mental notebooks littered over the Roadhouse, which had been closed down for casework. Ash and Bobby were still allowed inside, half-cleaning and half-pitching in, but the latter had admitted this was above his paygrade once “demons” didn’t check out.

Castiel shook his head, seated across the booth from Dean while sorting through his own notes. “It’s like there’s nothing to detect. Just suddenly… there’s an absence.”

“Please don’t get started on the whole ‘absence’ philosophy kick or whatever,” Dean implored.

That made Castiel look up, snared by a thought. Dean could see the gears turning in the heavenly being’s head and groaned as he dropped back. Castiel ignored the complaint. “We’re checking it out.”

* * *

That wasn’t a directive, but a truth. The all-presence and all-being of the soul had already proven to exist in many places at once before; and despite Dean’s charade, the idea of a case had immediately tickled him. 

“Trouble in Paradise, huh.”

Dean dredged through the weeds at the side of the road somewhere between his parents’ plot and the bridge over open waters.

Given, that was just how he and Castiel perceived it. While a large portion of humanity had adopted a similar perspective once Dean married into heavenly ownership, many had their own perspective like in days of yore. On a previous mediumship call, Sam had revealed he followed a river to make it to the bridge crossing where his path overlapped with Dean.

Castiel hadn’t opted to visibly manifest; not for real lack of Dean wanting him there, or a dislike of it--maybe because for once the hunter’s old spark was focused on something else than the copilot he had been cruising eternity with. He could still feel the attention on him, observing--but Castiel hadn’t felt he was needed. If anything came up that caught his attention and he could give answer with, he could show.

But someone else  _ did _ .

Dean sensed it. Another soul. And, minding he was offroading in a missing persons’ case, he swiveled with ivory grip M1911 drawn at a snap. 

“Don’t move!”

Dean stared down his barrel, recognizing the suited figure with his hands--and brows raised on the other end--

“Henriksen?”

* * *

“Henriksen? Like, Victor Henriksen?” Sam recalled some ten-years-past and then some.

_ “Yeah. Apparently he knew one of the people that got disappeared and had been trying to figure out how that happens, too. Actually, got word some others were in it too.  _

“Guess you can’t take the hunt out of the hunter.”

Dean!Patience shrugged.

* * *

“See, Winchester, I've been looking back,” Victor deposited a beer in front of Dean at the office desk that was Victor’s own personal slice of heaven; “This has been going on a while.” 

The popup FBI office touted boards of marker and thread lines, pins of roughly mapped heavenly spheres and detailed notes and perceived images of missing victims; filing cabinets and potted plants finished the look, making an uneasily terrestrial look if it weren’t for the side-access door out onto some sort of tiki hut porch overlooking the ocean from one window.

“Hard to say how long, really, since time’s kind of bass ackwards up here,” he thumbed at his wall clock. “I put time in mine though, gotta find some way to keep it straight.”

Dean thumbed over his drink. “Okay so,” he brushed his eyes over the casework pins. “You’re saying 267 souls have gone missing since Whenever?”

Victor tipped back his tall backed office chair and propped his feet on the desk. 

“Mmmmhm. At first it was just here or there. You know, someone notices they haven’t seen Bob in a while or whatever. Figure he went to reincarnate since he was a loner up here.”

Speaking of, Dean looked around. No bedroom, no real personal space, no portraits.

“That you? A loner?”

Victor let out a hearty laugh, “Nah man, I go up the way to this -- nevermind. Look, I got nothing but ex-wives and I’m good with the ex part.”

Dean smirked.

Victor went on, “Either way. It started picking up a few--what do you wanna call ‘em? Weeks? Moon cycles? --back. And it’s been escalating since and now people are making noise.”

“You been following it the whole time?” Dean looked impressed.

“Look. This job was my life. Stopping monsters. Saving people.”

“The family business.” Dean snorted.

Henriksen rolled his eyes while tipping back his drink. “Yeah well. Nobody thought much of it when it was just a few, but when it’s a few dozen a non-day people start freaking out.”

“Fair.”

“Speaking of family business,” Victor mused, “Your brother still kicking? I heard you bit it kinda fast on a rusty thumbtack or something.”

“Damnit, Cas,” Dean breathed. The salty obituary in the Celestial Times had done him no favors. “Yeah. Sam’s out there. It’s a long story, but he’s out there.”

“Damn shame really.” 

Victor caught the sharp look and put up a hand in surrender like he was at the end of a gun again. 

“I mean he’d be good for figuring this kind of thing out. Because I really don’t think a serial killer slipped into heaven so whatever this is, it’s supernatural, even for Heaven.”

That brought Dean down a level. “If we need to I can look in and figure out if we need to send him a message but that’s five headaches in a 1 headache hat. So we’ll keep that on backup. You know anything else?”

“These are the scenes I investigated.” 

The room around them shifted like a hologram. The desk and seating maintained as Victor side-swiped; fields just off the road; forest just off the stream; shadowed overpass tunnels, gas stations at crossroads, piers and more. 

“Not much in common that I can see.”

“Wait a second, go back.” 

Victor flipped back to the dock.

Dean stood up, looking around and gaining his bearings while walking out towards the planks over the water. 

“Did they disappear here?”

“I dunno, just last known location buddy. If we had an actual witnessed disappearance, that’d be something else.”

“Swipe back.” Dean directed.

“To what?”

“Gas station.”

And so it was; a battered, weathered strip of Americana that seemed like something out of Dean’s own mind. Realistically, it probably was, minding his footing in the new world. 

Victor actually stood to join him this time. Both migrated with their beers in hand over the lot, eyeing the pumps and heading towards the inside of the gas station. 

“I already looked,” Victor pointed out. “No signs of duress. Whoever’s memory this place belongs to--they’re not here--”

“I think it’s mine,” Dean considered as he walked past coolers full of El Sol and Margiekugel.

“How the hell’s it yours?”

“Long story,” Dean dismissed again, pacing the narrow aisles. “Nothing seems wrong, beyond there not being a clerk. And I guess I just didn’t bother to put one in.”

Victor looked perplexed, but Dean held up a finger and went back outside with the jingle of a bell. Ultimately, he stood at the corner of the intersection, looking out. 

“It’s all on the Axis.”

“It’s what now?”

Dean turned to head back closer to the desk, “Back to the office so we’re not chilling in backroads Iowa.”

One more flit of the memory, and they were returning to their seats.

“Okay,” Victor piped up. “What’s this about an Axis?”

Dean visibly searched for how to explain. “Okay, so--listen, I’m just repeating this the way someone else told me. But the Axis Mundi is like a path through heaven. For some people, it’s a river, or a tunnel. For me--and most people now--it’s a road.”

“So you’re saying that whatever it is, isn’t breaking and entering into heavens or whatever, they’re just doing it on the open street?”

“Yeah. Basically.” Dean leaned back. “Which is weird, because there’s not really walls on most of the places out there? Except ones people put up themselves. Literal or like, metaphorical warding.”

“Or time.”

Dean nodded side-to-side to illustrate Victor got the point.

“Okay so-- the angels can’t see this and figure it out? Or… do you think it’s them doing it?” Victor looked around cautiously.

Dean let out a belly laugh. Victor didn’t seem to know what was funny about that.

“Come on man, there’s like ten angels left, and one of them is named Karen.”

“What?”

“Look, before he was God, the new God made a bunch of angels out of humans but they’re really just wandering around clueless like the rest of us, that’s the big secret. Most of the originals are dead at this point.”

Victor tucked his chin back.

“Yup. It’s just… people doing their best up here now, for the most part.”

“What about uh,” Victor snapped his fingers and pointed. “Castiel. The one that put out the paper.”

Dean set his jaw. “It ain’t Cas.”

“You sure about that, Winchester? Any magical being I’ve seen is a big pile of dicks.”

Dean leaned forward onto the desk, leering into Henriksen. Suddenly the mood darkened. 

“You wouldn’t even have a heaven to live in if it wasn’t for Cas. So we’re going to move on.” 

A moment of heated look broke, and Dean slapped back on a loose demeanor while sitting upright.

“Cas is actually the one that pointed this out to me. I’m sure he’s around watching what we come up with actually, because he couldn’t figure out what was causing it either. Which is weird he should be able to sense like, anything here. Nothing. Just absence, he calls it. You don’t know it’s gone until you go looking for it.”

“Huh,” Victor seemed to take that explanation as well enough. “Okay. So what about the new God?”

“It ain’t him either. Listen, any suspects you’re gonna jump to in the heavenly ranks isn’t it. It’s not God, it’s not the angels, it’s not heaven’s system and it’s not heaven’s regents.”

“We have regents?”

Dean flashed an awkward grin and tipped it. “Long story.”

“You keep saying that.”

“Yeah, well,” Dean rose to stand with an unnecessary, reflexive groan of a stretch. “We’ve got a long time to talk. So what say you and I hit the road for a while and play bait? You said you have a place you head to down the way?”

Henricksen let out a stout laugh of his own. “Alright, Yeah, sure. Look. If I know any two things about you, you’re going to love it.”

* * *

The plan to root out a perp on the road didn’t itself come to fruition, but maybe that was never the direct intent. Dean took note of a different eternal bridge--this time, standing impossibly over an ongoing river that seemed to tunnel beneath it and swell wider at sections, breaking off or briefly swerving from immediately under the road to run parallel. Otherwise, they were surrounded by mountainous forests. “That’s different.”

The radio played on.

_ Asked sweet mama, Let me be her kid _

_ She said, "You might get hurt if you don't keep it hid _

“Yeah, uh. That thing about rivers or roads. Mine’s always been a river. I just walk it up the way.” Victor pointed ahead. “Guess yours is a road so while I’m in here we get both. Cuz’ logic, I guess.”

“Ah.”

_ Well I know my baby, If I see her in the dark _

_ I said I know my rider, If I see her in the dark _

“So come on, Winchester. Beyond dying on a stick, you’ve got to have something interesting. Like all them long stories you been brushing over.” 

“Eh. Been a few places, seen a few things, fought a few gods, the usual.” 

‘Just up the way’ hadn’t been an understatement. Dean could already see what appeared to be a starkly neon-lit bar or club up the path, and his track had barely even gotten started.

_ Now, I goin' to Rosedale, Take my rider by my side _

_ Still barrelhouse, If it's on the riverside, yeah _

“You really into that roguish mystery charm, huh?” Henriksen flitted his eyes in mocking judgment over the Winchester.

“What can I say? It’s how I roll.”

The Impala pulled in to the bar. The headlights caught glimpse of vibrantly painted women expressed across the entire building’s flank. Dean turned sharply in his seat to squint back at the sign, an arrow declaring “The Rear End.”

“...Oh.” He accidentally peeped.

_ I know my baby, Lord, I said, "is really sloppy drunk" _

_ I know my mama, Lord, a brownskin, but she ain't no plum _

“You shy all of a sudden, Winchester?” Victor cackled as he popped open the Impala’s door.

Dean rose on delay out the other side.

“What? No!” he called over the roof of the car.”

“Really? Cuz’ you left the keys in and the radio on.”

Dean boggled, leaned in and fixed both parts of that before popping back out and closing the car door--only to find Victor several steps ahead of him.

Dean looked towards the currently night-sky, as seemed appropriate for the domain, and husked to nothing, “It’s for a case,” before turning and jogging to catch up to Victor.

“Nice jacket,” Henriksen flashed a grin as they stepped into the pulsing club. 

Dean looked down, realizing he was wearing the beaten, oversized leather jacket of his youth. He reflexively raised a hand, touching his face as if to find something different.

“Makes you feel young again, huh?” 

Henriksen rolled forward across the abstract carpet to the dredging, aggressive beat of some 90’s rock Dean knew in his bones he heard before in a place not too dissimilar. His eyes found themselves snared by glitter-stained bodies in various stages of undress mounting, sliding and swinging across poles.

_ Well sweet little sista's high in hell cheat'n on a halo _

_ Grind in a odyssey holocaust heart kick on tomorrow _

Dean swallowed an entire sack of gravel.

_ Breakdown _

_ Agony said 'Ecstasy' in overdrive she come a riding on the world _

_ Thunder kiss'n 1965 _

_ Yeah, wow! Five, yeah, wow!! _

_ Demon-warp is coming alive in 1965 _

_ Five, five, yeah! _

Dean found himself numbly walking through the crowd, finding himself too close to some bodies and eyes peeling along with many of them. Some, he felt the spark--real souls; others, including several of the dancers--not as much. Part of whoever’s reality this place was, no doubt; their idea of perfect women--or maybe the mixed crowd’s idea and frankly, Dean couldn’t help but silently agree.

He found himself pulled in Victor’s orbit, pulling up at a round table at the foot of the stage and trying to ground his attention onto the menu. Which, unsurprisingly, had just about anything he could imagine on it.

“Alright Winchester, time to cough it up,” Victor hailed as their preferred drinks arrived without even placing an order. “What’s up with you?”

_ Livin' fast and dying young like a endless poetry _

_ My motor-psycho nightmare freak out inside of me _

_ My soul salvation liberation on the drive _

_ The power of the blaster move me faster 1965 _

Dean opened his mouth a few times but failed to make a noise at first. He rebooted by ripping a wide, charming smile over his face and shaking it off. 

“Nothing man, just been a while since I been anywhere like this.” 

The closest he could remember was the first time he lost Castiel to the Empty by Lucifer’s blade.

“Not that--but yeah, you do be acting weird,” Victor decided he’d pry about that part later. “I mean-- life man! You've given me three long stories, Winchester: Sam still kickin', you owning a gas station in the middle of nowhere, and heaven regents. Pick one.”

_ Yeah, wow! Five, yeah, wow!! _

_ Demon-warp is coming alive in 1965 _

_ Five, five, yeah! _

_ Gimme that, gimme that now, now, now, yeah! _

“Uhhh…” Dean fiddled with his shot glass, considering. “They’re all kind of connected actually. And you’re not gonna believe it.”

“Man we’re sitting at a strip club in heaven chasing a mystery case, what are you on about believing anything.”

“...Okay fair,” Dean conceded, throwing back his shot and hissing in the familiar burn. He chose to keep his eyes locked on Victor, and not the perfectly full ass almost hanging off the stage trying to get his attention. 

He scratched his brow ridge. “Okay so… I died, you know that. But before that we were fighting God. Lost some real good friends on the way.”

“That why there’s a new God?”

“Yeah yeah, hold on a minute. God’s… uh, God’s kind of my kid.”

“Woah wait,” Victor’s hands came up. “Run that by me again?”

_ Roll'n like a supersonic another fool that gets down on it _

_ Pig sweat a million miles, I got a heart atomic style _

_ I make it look easy, that's what I said _

“Okay so.” 

Dean flagged for more drinks, which were run by them with a perfect playboy bunny candidate to deposit on the table--two shots each. 

“He’s a nephilim. Half human, half angel. Was already stupid-powerful before he took the throne.”

Victor decided not to pile on more questions yet, but made a basic observation that gave Dean room to continue, “Which is why you said it’s not God.”

_ Blast of silence explodes in my head _

_ Yeah, yeah, yeah, gimme that, gimme that now _

“Yeah. Anyway, uh--” Dean threw back his second shot to stomach trying to cliff’s notes this. “Anyway, Cas died. Jack took over. I died. Sam lived out a life and died.” 

Dean saw the confusion in Victor, considering they were talking about Sam ‘still kicking’, so he held up a finger, “Anyway, there were regrets, since the kid was like… three. When he took over. Never really got a life. Sam lost things his way. So we sent him and his hunter girlfriend back with Jack and used some timey wimey thing to get it back on track since time’s all--” he circular gestured with both hands around to clarify the area around them. “But uh, Cas couldn’t go back and Jack wasn’t gonna go if it was all on Cas to run it so… we worked something out.”

_ Step to the moonshine frenzy hail: The Resurrection _

_ What's new pussycat, can you dig the satisfaction _

_ Well, you can't take it with you, but you can! In overdrive _

Victor was trying _ really really hard _ to not get lost, and failing. 

“Okay so, let me get this straight. You banged an angel, raised god, un-deaded Sam and like, run heaven now?”

Dean head-bobbled, chin tucked, “Well not necessarily in that order, but yeah.”

Victor decided he was too sober for this and threw back both of his shots back to back. Dean followed with his own remainder, and Victor summoned replacements for both of them.

“Take it that’s why you got all pissy about Castiel then, too.” 

The FBI agent had never met the angel, on earth  _ or _ in heaven after all.

_ Yeah! Some like it hot and twist'n, 1965 _

_ Yeah, wow! Five, yeah, wow!! _

_ Demon-warp is coming alive in 1965 _

_ Five, five _

Away from Thunder Kiss ‘65 and onto Brian Tichy’s Grunge Metal ‘Save the World’ teeth-rattling instrumental, Dean tapped his new shot glass and looked thoughtful. 

“But that’s enough about me.”

“Ohhhh shit, Winchester,” the agent leaned back with a visible dawning washing over his face. “That’s why you’re up in here acting a fool.”

Dean raised his brows, “What?”

“You got yourself a ball and chain? You, mister roadster man? And it’s an  _ angel _ ?”

Dean cleared his throat and tried to glance away, only to find himself following too many curves in any direction he glanced and locking his sights back onto Victor.

“Aw, hell man, you coulda’ told me. I thought you’d be like me up here, living the bachelor life. Please tell me she’s at least better than mine were.”

“Uhh--”

“Lemme guess-- blonde.” 

“Uhhh-- no, dark hair actually--”

“Blue eyes,” Victor called it.

“Uhh, yeah--”

Victor paused, another realization hitting him. 

“Oh shit can she see us right now?” His eyes bounced around the room. “I’M NOT HERE TO TAKE YOUR MAN!” the agent turned and called out to no one in particular, drawing multiple sets of eyes towards their table.

“I know,” came flatly from the opposite direction, with Castiel sitting calmly at the table, reading over a binder as if he weren’t sitting as a trenchcoat-wearing frump in the middle of a bouncing gentleman’s club.

Both Victor and Dean jumped in their seats, swiveling to face the angel who didn’t even bother to look up at them.

“Wait. That’s Castiel?”

Dean flashed a boyish smile askew at Victor. “That’s Castiel.”

“Dean, if you’re going to have me humor you being here you might as well appreciate it. There is a perfectly good greased up cowboy up there that manifests for you and you haven’t even looked up to notice,” Castiel turned a page. 

Victor had been stricken into silence, eyes bugging out of his head at Castiel--though the last statement drew the same frozen expression over to Dean.

“Eh heh. There’s a what now?” Dean played innocent.

Castiel looked up, “The owner designates the ability to create one desire for you, something like a mirror or a siren in wide scale. Only a few of the dancers here are real souls, and they’re just in it for the art of the work.”

“The art of the work,” Victor echoed, glancing between the two of them. “Your gay tax accountant angel is sitting here reading a book report talking about the art of the work.”

“Mm, no, I’m not an angel anymore.”

Victor squinted, “What?!”

“Long story,” Dean and Castiel spoke in perfect stereo.


	2. This Is Gonna Be a Long Afterlife

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A problem, absolution, but no solution. Except one in a glass.

“So Henriksen met Cas,” Sam chuckled over the medium circle.

_ “Yeah. Kinda blindsided him. Apparently he never even met an angel, just heard about them through heaven,  _

_ and Cas’ name is kind of all over the place even if people don’t really have their story straight on what he is or does anymore.  _

_ Just that an angel runs the joint.” _

“Yeah it doesn’t sound like that’s the part that got him, Dean.”

_ “Nah. I mean, he got past that quick--actually bitched something about missin’ his chance jumping to conclusions.  _

_ Which, **wow,** that’s relatable. --Look, that’s besides the point.” _

* * *

Dean and Castiel had called a limited meeting in the closed Roadhouse. Victor was, of course, invited. It took some convincing, considering he’d gotten the impression it’s where the ‘nobility of heaven’ chilled, and when he looked that way from the distance he had seen a proper castle. But, rolling up to the beaten woodside bar, he got a clearer image of it while stepping out of the back of the Impala; Castiel had seen himself off without incident, presumably to meet them later at the Roadhouse, which kept Victor from being downgraded to the backseat.

“Well? Ehh?” Dean spread his arms, inviting response, “What do you think?”

Henriksen nodded with tucked lips, “Not bad.”

They parted the double doors--closer to Swayze’s than the original roadhouse--and met with a few faces that weren’t closely familiar but neither were they foreign.

The colorful, vibrant lights that tended to fill the heart of Dean’s heavenly throne had been dimmed out by a sepia hinging on black and white. The jukebox played a soothing old jazz. Dean recognized it before he even saw the face helping himself to a drink behind the bar. “Henry?”

Henry Winchester turned, raising his drink to Dean. “Hey there, son. Brought you a friend for this case.” 

He nodded towards the back, where Cuthbert Sinclair quietly enjoyed his pipe with a bowtie and a one man card game.

“Who’s the dark fella?” Henry pointed.

“Woah, dude,” Dean spread his hands as if to carve out a wall, “You can’t just go around asking people that like that.” 

Dean was going to chalk that one up to different timelines and try to keep rolling, flashing an apologetic look to Victor.

“Victor,” he introduced himself. “Henriksen. FBI. Or I was, when I was  _ alive _ . Until this goon got me killed.”

Dean grimaced. “Still sorry about that.”

“Yeah, and sorry about attacking you as a crazy ghost. We’re square. You got me sent up here. All’s good at the end of the day.”

Cuthbert and Henry observed the verbal exchange like a tennis match before Henry picked up his notes.

“Anyway,” Dean cut in, “Henry there’s my dad. And that guy,” he gestured vaguely at Cuthbert, “Well his real name’s embarrassing, so just call him Magnus.”

“Pardon?”

“They’re uh, old Men of Letters.”

“That another long story of yours, Winchester?”

Dean flashed a grin.

Henry strolled forward, offering a mug of stout beer to either gentleman still standing there. “You see my boy here is a Legacy of one of the most powerful, instrumental organizations that silently kept this world turning in prevention of the dark arts and things that go bump for hundreds of years.”

Victor claimed his beer, looking back incredulously. “The white eyed bitch that blew me up says you did a pretty piss poor job of it.”

Henry swaggered in place empty-handed of both drinks and a comeback. “Yes. Well,” he muttered. “I was going to say we did until we were destroyed back in the sixties.”

“Yeah,” Victor butted in. “Sure.”

Cuthbert called up from the back, “Well boys, drag up a seat.”

Dean took a look around the placid feeling of the Roadhouse that had settled in. The spirit of Noir that followed his grandfather--and likely Cuthbert--had darkened the place considerably. In a way it felt more like the Roadhouse when he first found it, but failed to capture the homey, contended atmosphere. If nothing else, the path he had walked painted its colors back in behind him, so, “Alright fine, but let’s rev it up a bit here.” 

Dean swirled his fingers through the air in decree, kicking on the jukebox.

_ Spend my days with a woman unkind _

_ Smoked my stuff and drank all my wine _

“Y’all were gonna put me to sleep with that. We’re dead, not old,” Dean flipped the classic expression on its face while dropping into a chair across from Victor, one table aside from where Henry sat down with Cuthbert. No need to feel cramped. 

“So I take it you’re--”

“--Here on behalf of the Men of Letters,” Cuthbert piped in. “Henry here called me because word on the vine is you’re looking into the same interesting phenomenon we are.”

_ Made up my mind, make a new start _

_ Goin' to California with an achin' in my heart _

“You’re… saying the Men of Letters are… up here.”

“Mm! Some of us, at least.” Cuthbert flashed a dangerously tell-all smile, leaving the rest inferred.

“Alright. So whatcha got?” Victor cut to the chase.

_ Someone told me there's a girl out there _

_ With love in her eyes and flowers in her hair _

“Something rare--unheard of even. Extravagant.” 

Cuthbert reached aside, putzing around with a medium-sized rustic box he cracked open and turned to reveal a fleshy red flower shedding a tan husk that he thumped out onto the table. 

“It’s a--”

“Leviathan Blossom,” Dean finished for him, staring.

Henry looked taken aback. “You know what it is?”

“Yeah…” Dean breathed. “... I know what it is.”

_ Took my chances on a big jet-plane _

_ Never let 'em tell ya that they're aw-ooh-all the same _

“I don’t understand,” Castiel suddenly spoke up from the far side of Dean and Victor’s table.

Victor jumped again. “Can you stop doing that?”

“You get used to it,” Dean dismissed.

“So nice of you to join us after the invite, _ dear Queen, _ ” Cuthbert smirked.

“Those are only supposed to grow in Purgatory,” Castiel continued.

Victor whispered aside to Dean, “Queen?”

Dean waved it off, signaling that was better for another time.

“So you two know about the blossom?” Henry spoke up. 

_ Hoh, the sea was red and the sky was grey _

_ I wonder how tomorrow could ever follow today-hee _

_ Mountains and the canyons start to tremble and shake _

_ The children of the sun begin to awake _

“Yeah. Don’t know how much you know but those things?” Dean pointed. “Only grow in Purgatory. And they only grow in Purgatory because they only grow out of Leviathan rot.”

“Leviathan Rot?”

“Yeah. Like you kill a Leviathan and that pops up months later.”

The group of men mulled over that.

“And your angel doesn’t sense any Leviathan running around heaven?” Henry challenged, brows raised.

_ Now _

_ Watch out _

All eyes turned to Castiel.

“N-no. I just notice… absence.”

_ It seems that the wrath of the gods got a punch on the nose _

_ And it's startin' to flow, I think I might be sinkin' _

“You feeling any absence right now?” Dean offered helpfully.

“Dean, you don’t  _ feel  _ absence. You notice it.”

“I dunno about you, but any time you died I sure as shit noticed your absence.”

_ Throw me a line, if I reach it in time _

_ Meet you up there where the path runs straight and high _

“No, you noticed grief, you processed trauma. Absence thereafter is simply the lack of a thing or feeling being filled by something that exists.”

“Okay. So well in all the things you--feel up in there,” Dean flitted his fingers to Castiel in a sort of oogy-boogy, all-up-in-there generalized way. “Where are you not feeling it?”

Castiel sent Dean a look. There was danger there--in the dominant raised brow of ‘do you want me to say that in front of your friends’ way. Everyone inherently understood the subtext anyway, leaving the general feeling of discomfort and nerves.

_ Find a queen without a king _

_ They say she plays guitar and cries and sings, la-la-la-la _

Castiel opted to stick to business. “Just souls, The Soul, and the missing--” Castiel visibly searched after cutting himself off. “That’s interesting.”

“What? What’s interesting?” came out in a mix of several voices.

_ Ride a white mare in the footsteps of dawn _

_ Tryin' to find a woman who's never, never, never been born _

“Their plots are retaining their memories. Nothing new. But if the soul was destroyed one would reason the mental plane for it was gone too. Not that much can destroy a soul, anyway.”

“Okay?” Dean fished.

Castiel lifted his head. “Shadows.”

“Come again?”

“There’s shadows. Places I can’t see. Places the light isn’t hitting.”

“That’s… bad, right?”

_ Standin' on a hill in the mountain of dreams _

_ Tellin' myself it's not as hard, hard, hard as it seems _

“I should go and inspect.”

“Woah, woah!” Dean popped up as Castiel turned. “You, of all people, don’t get to go _‘Shadows!’_ and then disappear off on your own, buddy.” 

Dean turned to look back at the other three men. 

“You guys entertain each other, see if you come up with anything new and give us a ring. Victor buddy, if any of them pops off with some racist sixties nonsense feel free to clock them in the jaw, they’re made of glass.”

The music played out.

* * *

“You got… Leviathans in heaven?” Sam echoed back. “How does that even happen?”

_ “Yeah we’ll get to that. Speaking of, is Jack there with you? He hasn’t been talkin’.” _

“Oh, yeah. I’m here Dean! … Why?”

_ “Again, trust me, we’ll get around to that.” _

* * *

They pulled up to a homey, classic, two story house painted bright yellow. Outside of the car, Castiel observed his notes. “This would be miss Josephine Marx. Her soul went missing a few cycles ago.”

“Man, people aren’t much for originality in their heavens, are they?” Dean looked around, observing the white picket fence. “But everybody’s been disappearing on the Axis Mundi, why are we checking out their personal heavens?”

“I have a suspicion.”

Still sporting the disheveled and comely looks of their younger years, the pair approached the house. The angel rapped on the door and waited. 

They mulled around.

Dean pressed the doorbell.

They waited again.

“Guess nobody’s-” Dean was interrupted as the door opened. The classic image of a darling housewife with fountains of golden curls greeted them with a bright smile.

“Hello! I wasn’t expecting guests. Who are you?”

“My name is Castiel,” The ex-angel delivered. “This is my partner, Dean Winchester.”

“Ohhh, the boys that run heaven, isn’t that sweet of you to drop by for little-old-me. Why don’t you come in?”

They wandered inside the home, which remained decoratively cheery as they looked around their vicinity, taking in the details: family portraits, unnecessary animal themes, floral prints and discount drapes designed to make the place look merry.

As she bustled to the kitchen, Dean and Castiel shot each other a communicative look.

Dean leaned in, whispering, “She’s here but--”

“Doesn’t have a soul.”

“So is she a memory? Because… she reacted to us.”

They both stopped their muttering as she emerged with a plate of cookies. Both went perfectly rigid. 

“Would you boys like a snack? It must be hard to run heaven.”

Dean started to raise his hand to volunteer until Castiel elbowed him in the side scoldingly, not particularly trusting anyone’s cursed heaven cookies at the moment.

“Nahhhh, thanks anyway,” Dean brushed off. “Got to work on keeping my perfect figure, you know.” 

He glanced at the angel, who’s eyes prompted between him and Josephine to keep her busy. The angel had other ideas, and not the social graces to play entertainer. 

“So anyway, Josie--do you mind if I call you Josie?”

“That’s fine.”

“Really nice place you have here. Looks like a big family setup.” 

He wandered to the mantle, picking up a family portrait and inspecting the image of a wife and husband, 2.5 kids and a dog. 

“They not cross over yet?”

“No, but I decided to make it perfect for them once they do.”

“Ah, that’s--that’s nice.”

Elsewhere in the home, Castiel searched. And it didn’t take long.

_ Shadows. _

Such a simple and ordinary detail was easy to forget. Heaven’s warm, ambient light--even at nighttime--made it easy to forget there was never really just one light source despite the sun or moon in the sky at a given fake-time. Simple things: shadows of chairs, shadows of the vase in the window.

Shadows.

Castiel’s mind went back to their other Leviathan encounters, and he quickly found himself wandering towards the laundry closet and trying to open the doors. His eyes scoured the shelves, grabbing a box of Borax and closing it just as quietly while heading to the kitchen. 

He let Dean stall and charm his way through, but took no comfort in extra time. A tall glass of hot water from the tap, a scoop in a half full glass and an aggressive swirling, Castiel wandered back out into the livingroom where the two were bantering.

“I helped myself to a drink, I hope you don’t mind.” 

Castiel found his nerves crawling with how close the not-woman was getting to Dean, potential threats minded. 

“Oh, we’re looking at pictures,” he bustled over as if to get a look, completely-incidentally bouncing off of Josephine and letting water slosh out of the cup onto her arm.

She immediately started sizzling.

Dean spotted it and staggered away even if he didn’t know what caused the reaction, before the Leviathan’s screech even permeated the air, face splitting open into numerous rows of teeth. Castiel retaliated by just slogging the rest of the cup of borax-water in the open maw. Right in the gizzard. The screech that sang out shattered windows and lightbulbs, and the color drained from the home.

“Let’s  _ go _ .” Castiel barked, commandingly.

“First,” Dean slapped prepared cuffs onto the writhing figure, still screaming, and dragged it in their wake. 

En route to the exit, the hallway door behind them opened, with figures emerging from basement steps. 

“Oh great, the whole family’s here,” Dean chuckled. “Aren’t they adorable.” 

Screaming split-faces and all. Even the dog.

“Hang on.”

Castiel pressed a finger to Dean’s head and the world around them spun.

* * *

Bobby popped upright as his heavenly hovel rattled the glass, flashes of alien white light outside his window. 

“What the hell?” he asked, in heaven, as he found his feet.

He heard the squealing door of the safe room downstairs, jogging down the steps to catch up.

Dean and Castiel turned to face him, hands up. 

“Sorry for not knocking. Last time we did that, it didn’t go so well.”

There was screaming and pounding, horrific banshee noises and all kinds of distress from the safe room.

“...What the hell’s in there?” Bobby demanded. “DEAN WINCHESTER, ARE YOU BRINGING ME MONSTERS IN FRICKIN’  _ HEAVEN  _ NOW?” 

“I couldn’t think of anywhere else to put it that was resilient enough on short notice,” Castiel admitted gruffly.

“What’s ‘it’?!”

“Leviathan,” Dean matched Castiel’s brusque tone.

“Excuse me, **what** ? 

“You mean those mangle-faced phalii with teeth? The hell are they doing in  **_Heaven_ ** ?”

Castiel looked back to the banging against the door. “That’s what we’re trying to figure out.”

“Is it alone?”

“Nah,” Dean piped up unhelpfully, “The place we came from had like five more popped out on us while we were bagging this one. We had to split.”

“Can’t Cas just blow them out his ass to earth or purgatory or wherever?”

“What, so Sam and everyone have to deal with it?” Dean bit back. “Besides we still have to figure out how many and where they are, and where they put the non-bodies.”

Bobby blinked aggressively. “Say that again?”

“Much less how they got in,” Castiel finally backed away from the steel door. “As long as Bobby stays surly that should keep it tamped down for now, until I can build a better caging system.”

“Don’t try to bail out a boat that’s still got a leak,” Bobby nodded along. “Got it. So what, you think you can shake it down and figure out where its friends are at?”

Dean and Cas both nodded, but the latter spoke. 

“Leviathans function off of a hive mind, a sort of collective that is shared. Short of whoever they’ve deemed their proverbial leader as an asset, there really is no sense of individuality or identity there. So if we have one, we should be able to find the rest.”

“That tracks.” Dean indirectly admitted he wasn’t entirely sure what the plan was once they got it in the bag.

“...I’m gonna get drinks, this is gonna be a long afterlife,” Bobby groaned and wandered off.

* * *

A series of images assailed the mind.

_ A haunted, timeless forest rich in gamma flare and dead in color, all contrast blinding--a place Castiel knew well: Purgatory. _

_ A stream, a river, that led to a clearing with a gate. The same gate he had let go of Dean’s hand at once before in self punishment. A gate only intended for humans to cross. _

_ Eve. Simply Eve, turning to face him as if she saw him through the mind’s eye. _

_ An old tree, leaves fallen, standing naked and petrified. Black ooze had cemented itself in twisted, warped flow around it, cementing a fossilized snake skeleton against it. _

Castiel released the mental grip on the Leviathan, who tumbled. It still snarfed at nothing in protest, trying to bite at the angel’s ankles as he stepped out of the safe room and closed the door.

“Anything?” Dean’s uncertainty was betrayed by the crossed arms he passed off as staying cool.

Castiel stole the bottle of whiskey out of Dean’s hand. But, rather than being his Designated Soberer and Wifely Minder, this time, Castiel twisted it open for himself. Bobby’s finest on call might actually do something for him.

“Great. Now Heaven’s getting drunk,” Dean sassed. “That bad?”

Castiel hissed as he wandered towards one of the work tables, setting down the drink and propping himself up against it while facing the room. 

“I didn’t see how they got in.” 

Bobby and Dean could both read there was more to that statement. 

“But I think I figured it out.”

* * *

The medium circle’s story got a brief interrupt. 

_“And Jack?”_ Dean called out.

“Yeah?”

_ “I really appreciate the whole… free will, freedom of man, opening doors Jod kick? But?” _

“But?”

_ “Please ask Cas before you open doors next time.” _

Sam squinted.

* * *

“So hold up,” Bobby wanted to make sure he was going over this correctly while standing over his upstairs, desperately searching his memories of notes for anything to corroborate the madness he was hearing. “You’re saying that Purgatory is just Eden?”

“In a manner of speaking.” Castiel nodded. “Yes.”

“Okay, Cas, I have dealt with-- a lot-- and I mean a LOT-- of crazy coming out of your mouth, but you’re going to have to run that by me again.”

Castiel set his jaw, reclaimed the whiskey he had migrated with him, and brewed over how to explain what he was postulating.

“We’re going to do this as a quiz, then.” The ex-angel sighed hopelessly with an eyeroll. “Both answer, first thoughts.”

“Okay?” Bobby and Dean answered in unison.

“Who were the first humans?”

“Adam and Eve,” x 2.

“Who was the mother of monsters?”

“Eve.” A harmonic duo.

The room went quiet. 

Dean piped up. “Yeah, but I mean, it’s not the same one, is it?”

Castiel raised his brows as he looked over to Dean. “When you met Adam, he had someone. You told me her name.”

“Serafina or something, right.”

“Right,” Castiel remembered. “Where’s Eve.”

Dean mentally flatlined.

Bobby was missing that particular piece of the puzzle but tried to fill it in a different way. “Eve’s the mother of monsters, not the mother of humans, Cas.”

“What’s the difference?” Castiel raised his chin in challenge, tipping his drink back while waiting for an answer.

“Well, for one, Cas, they’re freakin’ monsters,” Dean pointed out what he considered the obvious.

“Okay. So tell that to Garth. Or Benny. How did they get made, do you remember?”

The room got stricken by silence again.

“Human souls. Afflicted by conditions. Turn into monsters, be it literal or metaphorical,” Castiel laid it out as clear as day. 

“Okay, I think I follow,” Bobby conceded, “But monster souls and Leviathan are different, aren’t they?”

“Yeah, and what about that time you got ripped apart by housing them?” Dean upnodded in challenge.

“Well, at that point I had neither a proper caging system nor a vessel capable of holding them. In subsuming Death, mine became infinite,” Castiel answered his partner’s challenge first, before looking back to Bobby. “And in an aspect you’re right, but I can’t say you’re wrong.”

“I’m getting so tired of trying to figure out how the whole universe works,” Dean framed his migraine between his fingers ringed around his temples.

“There was a time Death said,” Castiel distantly tried to recall the exact phrasing for a conversation Dean might remember, “There were things much older than souls in Purgatory.”

Castiel could see challenge rising in Dean’s eyes, but the hunter hadn’t interrupted him yet.

He continued.

“Long before Chuck created Angel and man, he made the first beasts--the leviathans. Death found them entertaining. But Chuck decided they were too dangerous--they’d chomp the entire petri dish he was building and locked them away. It’s why purgatory was created. To house the Old Ones.”

“But,” Dean finally spoke his protest. “You said there’s nothing really older than souls.”

“You misunderstand what I said, Dean.”

Bobby opted to listen through the lesson, squinting through the back and forth.

Castiel clarified, “Souls as we know them were waiting to be born, yes. But I told you, they only came to be the Light once there was a mental world to self-perceive in.” Castiel caught the open-mouthed confusion from the hunter, trying to explain. “The Shadow, if you remember, is what I called the Prime Material. That we all have one, and outside of the light and what light we let in, it’s our base form in our emptiness.”

“Yeah I got that part, you’ve beaten it into my head since I got here.”

“Okay. Now Dean,” Castiel put down the bottle and uprighted himself, trying to make a little box with his hands around it. “The whiskey is the soul, remember? And the cup--or the bottle in this case--is the perceived world. Whether that’s how a mind shapes it or in a body in the world a mind shaped to begin with, that’s what holds the soul. Now, what do you think happens if there is no bottle?”

“Son, I swear on my life if you spill my whiskey all over the place I’m gonna kill Heaven,” Bobby piped in, cutting the visible analogy short.

But something clicked with Dean. “So… they never got to really become light, or like… live or perceive themselves, so they’re just a funky shadow hive mind that what, eats people?”

“People. Souls, maybe. Mostly pure ones, or creatures of light like angels, trying to find their own.”

“So… Adam and Eve were some sort of proto human, Adam made it out and kept a grudge boner on god while banging an angel and Eve got, what, thrown into Purgatory?”

“Or became Purgatory. Maybe she can only exit in a vessel. I don’t know exactly what happened. But I know one thing: The Axis Mundi still runs through Purgatory, it’s just collectively perceived as a river. We’ve followed it before. Multiple times.”

_ There’s a clearing. At the end of the stream. You’ll find your angel there. _

“Oh, shit, that makes sense,” Dean admitted, looking like he’d been hit by an entire sack of hammers.

“I don’t know what step in creation Purgatory itself was built or how it was built,” Castiel admitted. “Maybe the Serpent in the garden is even a Leviathan that came to know the Light. The Leviathan of Mankind, if you will. But these unformed proto-souls just spread their pain and chaos and afflict others to drag them back towards their same base, primal selves and more of the same.”

“...Then what’s a Leviathan blossom?” Dean challenged.

Castiel looked thoughtful. “...Absolution.”


	3. Come Into My Kitchen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Nightside of Eden.

_ “...Then what’s a Leviathan blossom?” Dean challenged. _

_ Castiel looked thoughtful.  _

_ “...Absolution.” _

* * *

“Cas, what are you doing?” 

Dean watched the angel ripping through endless filing cabinets in a newly minted office space attached to their upstairs cabin. 

“Trying to find an answer to a very old question.”

“What even is this place?” 

Dean felt like he was having flashbacks to Death’s library, but rather than books it was infinite heights of filing cabinets and rough hewn stock shelving. Given, it was a wood-based, rustic decor rather than the sleek black-and-metal look of Billie’s joint. Dean mused as he tapped his fist across different drawers and units, observing misplaced knick knacks and brick-a-brack.

“A rough method of tracking souls in and out, missing ones are over there,” Castiel pointed at a stack on the unremarkable desk. 

“Why does your brain look like the archives?” 

Castiel ignored the question. Instead, he almost kicked over his own mental chair and went flying, catching himself on another shelf in a ‘Eureka’ moment. 

Dean helped brace him. “You okay there, sherlock?”

“Dean--” Castiel put out a hand. “You’re not going to believe this.”

“Yeah okay, try me.”

“Do you remember the question I asked you in purgatory?” 

Dean’s open-ended stare meant Castiel needed to clarify more. 

“About a twist in metaphysics. Where do monsters go when they die?”

Dean furrowed his brows. “I mean yeah? I guess?”

“At first, I thought the answer might have been the Empty, but the thing is, they still had souls. And if we’re right, that might happen for Leviathans--or it might not.”

“Okay?”

“Okay so a soul in Purgatory theoretically decays until it becomes part of the Leviathan hive, correct?”

“Right, I guess. When we nuked Dick a bunch of them just turned into regular monsters.”

Cas nodded. “Okay. So now’s the question. You asked about a friend of yours last time we went to Purgatory.”

Dean stopped cold in his tracks. He felt his throat swell. He couldn’t bring himself to breathe the name. Instead, he stole the paper Cas was holding and read the file.

_ Benny Lafitte. _

“Benny’s… in Heaven?”

“...Benny’s in Heaven.”

* * *

“Okay, so I still don’t see how this is going to answer the Leviathan question,” Dean only half-protested while taking the Impala out of park to the Axis Mundi with Cas in shotgun. Truth be told he was quick to jump at the chance to see Benny--well, not alive, but not erased. That was good enough.

The radio played on where it left off with Victor. 

_ See my baby, tell her, Tell her hurry home _

_ Had no lovin', since my baby been gone _

_ See my baby, Tell hurry on home _

_ I ain't had, Lord, my right mind, Since my rider's been gone _

“It’s not, directly. But if it confirms the theory then we know that somehow Purgatory as some sort of Nightside of Eden is real.”

“How does A become B?”

“It has to do with the transit of the soul. Something I’m actually very familiar with. Mine came from the mind being filled; but the blossom itself might be the manifestation of absolution from the base and primitive shadow.”

“You lost me again.”

Castiel rolled his eyes as they took off across bridges over open water for more distant heavens than the orbit of general Winchesterland. 

_ Hey, she promises, She's my rider _

_ I wanna tell you, She's my rider _

_ I know you're mine, She's my rider _

_ She ain't but sixteen, But she's my rider _

“Think of it like a plant, Dean. Decay itself is a stage of life. It makes fertile soil. Some of it is impurities, but a forest becomes richest after a fire.” 

Dean didn’t have to speak his filling  _ Okay? _ For Cas to hear it in the air. 

“So the prime material existed, but was self perceived, and became a blossom. Then, as the blossom grows in perception and self, it blooms. Into a soul.”

“Okay, but the Leviathans never got anything planted until something happens and sometimes they sprout something else. And maybe other monsters too.”

“Yes.”

“And if Benny’s really here, and is human now, then this confirms the theory, and that loops back to Purgatory being some weird shadow of Eden that Chuck made when he decided Eve was too big of a threat?” 

Dean took notice of an out of place off ramp over the waters leading towards a distant island, which he assumed was their destination being broadcast. He turned to take the exit. 

“Yes.”

“Wow. Okay. Hashtag Me Too. Score one for feminist Chuck again.” 

_ I'm goin' to Rosedale, Take my rider by side _

_ Anybody argue with me man, I'll keep them satisfied _

_ Well, see my baby, tell her, Tell her the shape I'm in _

_ Ain't had no lovin', Lord, since you know when _

“The other first woman became one of if not the first demon. It’s fairly serial with him at the end of the day.”

Dean nodded along. As they approached the island, the area beneath the bridge began to fill out with more perceived land that one could only assume belonged to the domain outside of their own perception of the Axis. Water still ran parallel to the bridge, which quickly took to ground level running parallel to a southern bayou.

“...Looks right for him,” Dean admitted.

They rolled up on a shante and dock rife with a few fishing boats just off a river inlet. Assuming their Destination, Dean dropped it into park.

_ Why don't you come into my kitchen _

_ She's a kindhearted lady. She studies evil all the time _

_ She's a kindhearted woman. She studies evil all the time _

Dean took in a breath. Castiel sensed uncertainty crossing over the hunter as he let moments drift by. 

“You sure you’re ready for this?”

“I don’t know, Cas. Last time I saw him, I kind of… had to kill him.”

Castiel went quiet.

“But… I think he understands?” as weird as that sounded to say.

Castiel nodded.

_ Squeeze my lemon til- _

The radio cut off with the car.

The two stepped out and were quickly greeted by a man stepping out onto the low porch in response to the headlights.

“Well, if it ain’t Dean Winchester,” Benny Lafitte crooned with a drawl, voice strong enough that even his placid volume reached across the flats. “And the angel,” he tipped his cap.

“Benny,” Was all Dean could muster, trying to sound strong and resolved as he nodded back.

“I see you’ve found my little slice of the bayou!” Benny celebrated, gesturing abroad. “Heard about how you bit it. Damn, life’s a dick and then you die on it, huh?”

Dean cast a harsh look to Castiel, who happened to be intensely interested in another direction.

“We uh--” Dean cleared his throat. “We don’t have long. We’re actually working a case.”

“Working a case,” Benny repeated disbelieving, and brows popped high. “In heaven. You’re working a case in heaven.” 

“Something something, the city that never sleeps, you know?”

Benny looked between them, “Well, you two take a load off for at least two clicks, I’ve got a boil inside and it’s rude to decline.”

* * *

“Okay--” Sam had to catch up. “So we’ve got Cas, Victor and Benny. What is this, Dean and the Honeys? Now who’s writing fanfiction?”

Alex snorted. Claire looked annoyed at best. Jack didn’t seem to understand either end of that emotional spectrum.

“What’s next, Crowley?” Sam jeered. 

_ “Shut up, Sam. This is actually serious. You guys were this close to having to deal with another Armageddon on earth.” _

Sam cast a knowing eye towards Eileen in the camera, brow raised. He would save their own plot twist until later. 

“Yeah, okay Dean, go on.”

* * *

Dean didn’t know how to handle himself around Benny, even after ample crawfish and soul food arrays were laid out on the table for them. He and Castiel had already determined Benny was real, in the soul-sense. Not some hologram, not some echo, not some memory, definitely not a Leviathan and most certainly… human.

If nothing else, food served most things, as Dean snapped apart shellfish to suck out their innards in a less than sexy display. 

“I see you trying not to be weird, Winchester. Remember. I knew what was coming for me. It’s fine. Besides, you kinda gave me a new lease on life. Or the afterlife, at least.”

Both Dean and Castiel looked at Benny, intrigued.

“You know, once you get known in Purgatory, it’s hell. Well I mean, not literally. But the whole Thunderdome comes calling for you like it’s some sort of arena they’re trying to get high score on. You either run the winning mob or you don’t. It was vicious, man. I don’t know how many years it was but eventually they got the better of me. Then one day… I just woke up here in the bayou. Nothing but smooth sailing since. Not a single bloodlust.”

Dean nodded through, still hovering a half-cracked crawfish in the air as he mulled on that. 

“Well that’s uh--good, I guess.”

Castiel cast a stark gaze towards Benny. “Do you remember anything between your death in purgatory and being here?”

Benny squinted, looking towards the ceiling for the answer. “Not really. There’s a few things but they’re blurry, like everything was moving. Being in a car too fast, you get me?”

Castiel nodded.

“What about you two? Beyond Dean dying on a corkscrew and you somehow running the joint I don’t have much detail on how you got there.”

“Fought God,” Dean muffled through a mouthful of food, casting down a crawfish corpse. “Saved the world lots. Raised the new god.”

Castiel… just nodded along. “That sums most of it up, barring chapters with Cain and god’s sister.”

Benny looked between the two of them. Whether they were being serious or not, he couldn’t tell; either way, it drew a heavy belly laugh that doubled him over the table. 

“You two,” he swept it out of the air. “Never change.” 

He sobered, suddenly, staring each of them fiercely in the eyes in turn. 

“Unless I’m ever stuck in Purgatory with you again. Then please, by god, change.” 

But with that, the laughter resumed, and Dean couldn’t help but join in with the knee-slapping. Even Castiel cracked a crooked smile.

“So what’s this case you’re working on?”

“Uhhh---” Dean decided his face was better filled with food than words.

“Oh, it would be difficult to describe. In short, your existence here proved a theory we’re working on involving the presence of Old Ones since before the universes were made.” 

Castiel earned a blank stare. 

“Don’t worry, you’re not one of them, it’s just a link in the chain. But it felt like this was a much needed reunion.”

Benny nodded along.

“Listen, uh,” Dean cleared his throat as he shoved away his plate. “I know you’re not much of a people person or whatever. But if you ever want to swing by the Roadhouse, that’s where me and Cas spend most of our time.”

“The Roadhouse?”

“I dunno. People see different things looking out from afar. The garden. Or… the giant castle thing. The throne room. It’s pretty much in the middle of heaven so follow the river long enough and you’ll find us. Good drinks all the time.”

“Got yourself a deal, Winchester.”

* * *

_ Why don't you come into my kitchen _

_ She's a kindhearted lady. She studies evil all the time _

_ She's a kindhearted woman. She studies evil all the time _

Dean smirked aside at Castiel as they took back to the road. 

“We really didn’t have to go see him, huh, Cas?”

The ex-angel looked up, feigning innocence.

“You had the records. You knew he was there.”

“...I thought it would do you well. Gifts these days that you can keep are rare.”

_ Squeeze my lemon 'til the juice runs down my leg _

_ Squeeze it so hard, I'll fall right out of bed _

_ Squeeze my lemon, 'til the juice runs down my leg _

_ Spoken: I wonder if you know what I'm talkin' about _

Dean cleared his throat as the song went on suggestively. 

“So uh, what does this all add up to, Dumbledore?”

“That if a soul--or even the tainted workings of one--has a sense of self perception, it can be born anew after being tested in fire,” Castiel simplified. “Which would indirectly confirm Purgatory as a shadow of Eden, and that somewhere along in the recreation of the Heavens, Purgatory was at least partially unleashed.”

“Okay. I can work with that.”

_ Oh, but the way that you squeeze it girl _

_ I swear I'm gonna fall right out of bed _

“So, um--”

“Yes, Dean, I know.”

“What?”

“The reason I even took notice of you in the club is because you were fighting so hard to avoid responding that you actually lost interest in the middle of our communion.”

Dean slammed the breaks, swerving just before the onramp to escape the bayou.

“Hey, no--absolutely not.”

Castiel chuckled quietly to himself.

_ She's a good rider _

_ She's my kindhearted lady _

_ I'm gonna take my rider by my side _

_ I said her front teeth are lined with gold _

“It’s fine, Dean. Franky I was impressed by your control ignoring the dancers. But apparently, there was something there with that Victor,” a pause. “And maybe Benny, your feelings are mixed there.”

“Hey--wait, hold up--” Dean tried to defend.

The angel just leaned over. “It’s fine. But something occurred to me.” 

Dean breathed in the angel’s very being, feeling the scruff against his chin. It lit every fiber of his soul on fire. “We’ve never made use of your own occultum.” Dry lips pressed to flush ones, and the night rocked on in the bayou.

_ She's gotta mortgage on my body, got a lien on my soul _

_ She's my brownskin sugar plum... _

* * *

“Woa-woa-woa-woah, okay, enough, I don’t need details,” Sam cut in.

Dean cackled at the other end of the line, which transmitted interestingly through Patience.

At this point, Claire looked horrified. It was no longer her dad’s body, but somehow, Castiel had filled a very similar role to her--and frankly, Dean just as much. 

“Are--are we gonna get to Jody tonight?” she squeaked.

_“Sorry, kid, there’s a lot to catch up on this time,”_ Dean hooted, wiping his eyes on the other end of the line. 

_ “If you can keep the circle locked in, you guys take a pee break or something. Check back in like, an hour, I don’t know. I don’t know what an hour’s like anymore.” _

After some rearranging at the table with cautious handfasting and migration, as well as Claire helping resettle Sam’s laptop in front of him for his translation use, everyone settled back in for the rest of the story.

Sam prompted, “You still haven’t explained how the Leviathans got in. I get the shadow of eden thing, I get the souls and the rebirth or whatever--but there used to be a wall up anyway.”

_ “Yeah, about that.” _

* * *

“Okay,” Dean paced the emptied out roadhouse.

_ Sisters of the way-side bide their time in quiet peace _

_ Await their place within the ring of calm _

_ Still stand to turn in seconds of release _

_ Await the call they know may never come _

“So Eden’s shadow is Heaven. And people’s heavens have literal shadows if they’re taken by Leviathans that tried to replace them. And this has something to do with the Shadow as the Prime Material that came before souls, because they didn’t have a world to perceive themselves in?” Dean recapped.

“Yes,” Castiel answered, standing in vigil while only turning his head as Dean went to-and-fro.

“And now Leviathans are trying to take over heaven one soul at a time because they got out somehow when you guys remade heaven, because it’s part of the spheres?”

“Yes,” Castiel replied again.

_ In times of lightness, no intruder dared upon _

_ To jeopardize the course, upset the run _

_ And all was joy and hands were raised toward the sun _

_ As love in the halls of plenty overrun _

“So… are the Leviathans shadows of the people they’re taking, or are they different shadows that never formed a soul in the world and instead perceived themselves as some hive mind?”

“Unclear,” Castiel admitted like a magic 8ball. “But I lean towards the latter. Also, the plural of Leviathan is still Leviathan, and this has been a wedge in our conversations since they first emerged. In the interest of transparency in our relationship I thought I might clarify that this still drives me insane.”

“...Ok.”

_ Still in their bliss unchallenged mighty feast _

_ Unending dances shadowed on the day _

_ Within their walls, their daunting formless keep _

_ Preserved their joy and kept their doubts at bay _

_ Faceless legions stood in readiness to weep _

Dean didn’t dwell on singular versus plural for long. He had more pressing issues. He was still trying to put together everything they had discovered. 

“But when a Leviathan dies in a state it like, knows itself, it makes a blossom? That can become a soul? And monsters are just souls put in states like Leviathan were subject to?”

“Yes,” Castiel repeated, continuing to watch the pacing path.

“But Leviathans can grow souls or monsters can become human souls if they die figuring out what it All Means.”

“Yes, similar to an angel acquiring a soul, or in my case, the World Soul due to the technical restraints and conditions therein.”

_ Just turn a coin, bring order to the fray _

_ And everything is soon no sooner thought than deed _

_ But no one seemed to question in anyway _

“Okay, so--” Dean struggled. “Bear with me here, but like, riddle me this. Remember when I was a demon and you guys purified me?”

Castiel blinked. “Yes.”

“It took consecrated blood and a bunch of other stuff, but maybe something similar could work here.”

“You mean… curing a Leviathan and bringing them into the Light?”

“I mean, yeah, why not?”

_ How keen the storied hunter's eye prevails upon the land _

_ To seek the unsuspecting and the weak _

_ And powerless the fabled sat, too smug to lift a hand _

_ Toward the foe that threatened from the deep _

_ Who cares to dry the cheeks of those who saddened stand _

_ Adrift upon a sea of futile speech? _

_ And to fall to fate and make the 'status plan' _

_ But no one there had heaven within their reach _

As the song played on, even Castiel folded his arms. “I guess. But considering the relic needed for killing a Leviathan that we know of is exceedingly rare, and complicated to make, nor do we know how the one that created the blossom Magnus found was killed, that leaves us at a difficult impasse.”

“Well unless we can introduce them to confessing love we may have an issue. You mentioned absolution?”

“Related,” Castiel admitted with a side-nod. “I once told Jack he didn’t need absolution from you, Sam, or myself--implicitly, just from himself. That’s what me speaking to you was ever about to begin with. You already tried to confess in Purgatory--it was never about you.”

Dean nodded through. “So they have to find some way to identify, then atone, and gain an identity beyond one they’re trying to steal and projecting through.”

“Yes.”

_ Where was your word, where did you go? _

_ Where was your helping, where was your bow? Bow _

_ Dull is the armour, cold is the day _

_ Hard was the journey, dark was the way, way _

_ I heard the word, I couldn't stay, oh _

_ I couldn't stand it another day, another day _

“I never should have stopped you from speaking,” Castiel looked up, sorrow in his eyes.

“Dude, you told me that already.”

“I don’t have many regrets,” Castiel admitted. “But that one still haunts me, and may until the day of my permanent soul-death exterminating the universe.”

Dean grimaced. “Well. That’s… nice.”

Castiel flashed a weakened smile. “My personal struggles and reservations never should have inhibited you from speaking your truth.”

“I told you, Cas, it’s fine.I don’t know if I was really ready then either. I’d probably have said I need or I want you.”

_ Another day, another day _

_ Touched by the timely coming _

_ Roused from the keeper's sleep _

_ Release the grip, throw down the key _

_ Held now within the knowing _

_ Rest now within the peace _

Castiel nodded along, still wrapping himself in his crossed arms. Dean watched the angel try to process the information, but was less than certain it set in--even here, in this eternal place of peace.

“So,” Dean segued. “What do we do now?”

Castiel continued his thoughtful nodding, assuring himself of his own thoughts along the way.

_ Take of the fruit, but guard the seed _

_ They had to stay _

_ Held now within the knowing _

_ Rest now within the peace _

_ Take off the fruit, but guard the seed _

_ Take off the fruit, but guard the seed _

“We go back. To the Shadow of Eden.”

* * *

“You’re a crappy storyteller,” Sam jokingly protested.

_ “Shut up, it’s for the suspense. And the lesson. Remember Sammy, it isn’t about the destination, it's about the journey.” _

Sam rolled his eyes once Eileen’s translation came through the line.

Jack tentatively piped up. “Are...we getting to the reason I’m in trouble yet?”

Castiel’s voice finally broke through the line, _“Oh, I thought that had been made clear already. Unless you’re bluffing and you already know.”_

Jack quieted, visibly turning red and sinking into himself.

* * *

”Alright. So the Axis Mundi connects the worlds,” Dean simplified. 

Whether it was a road, tunnel or a river was irrelevant. 

“Sam got Bobby out of hell in one, we tried to get out of Purgatory in another, and up here we’re driving it as a road. And it’s all heaven. Right?”

“Heavens, plural, but yes. Think of it as spheres. Different boxes of thought. Chuck just made himself a few extras and let the collective minds fill out the details in the others, like Purgatory.”

“Okay,” Dean segued, accepting the insanity as fact and simply choosing to move on. “So if Purgatory is just the Shadow of Eden, where do we go to get there this time? I don’t see some convenient glowing rift at the end of the road for us to jump through and check it out.”

Castiel looked thoughtful. Determining that kind of thing was difficult in a spacenso relative, once one was aware of the relativity. “Do we have a basement?”

Dean perked. “What?”

“I mean, if the Roadhouse is the core of the heavens, the new occultum--and the occultum is the garden--do we have a basement?”

Dean visibly searched his mental fields. “Maybe? Like a wine cellar? Did you not think about that when you created a whole megaverse?”

Castiel tipped his head to-and-fro, accepting the responsibility of the oversight. 

“Admittedly when you can will whatever you wish into existence, drinks included, a basement or a cellar is not a high thought to venture into.”

Dean had to accept that at face value.

The two ventured outside of the Roadhouse, circling it with flashlights by the convenient cover of night. 

Castiel let the moon guide him more than his personal beacon, catching its clean white rays bouncing off of the door of a storm cellar overgrown by moss and ivy. 

Fixating his flashlight onto it, Dean swiveled his own to meet them before approaching. 

They hovered around it in flank for several seconds too long.

“You first. Your majesty,” Dean joshed.

Castiel snorted. “You’re regent here too. But I’ll just take it as your fear of tunnels.”

“I’m not afraid of tunnels!” Dean protested loudly as the angel took a knee, inspecting the padlock on the door. 

It clicked open on command. There was, theoretically, nothing Castiel couldn’t override here, and even in his most humble angelic days a simple lock on earth was nothing to jimmy open.

Castiel stood again. “I guess it’s time to go back.”

“Again.” Dean gruffed.

Castiel cautiously opened the cellar door, and the two descended into the somewhat-known abyss together.


	4. Annnnd... Freezeframe!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Angel of the Roadhouse

Dean swiveled a flashlight over the hollow forest.

“Well…” Dean searched the greyed out sky merged into the canopy. “Looks like Purgatory.”

Something hit him late. He crunched his eyes shut and wrenched his lips. “Damnit.”

Dean waded out of a stream in soggy boots, taking an immediate seat on the shoreline to dump out the water. He didn’t care it was just mental. Mentally, there was nothing more annoying than being stuck in sloshing boots. 

Dean took a moment to realize… Castiel wasn’t there. His jaw set and his eyes traveled over his thoughts more than the pebbles around him.

Dean came back to his feet, eyeing the door.

Well, the lack of one.

“Sorry, Cas.” He imagined the angel panicking on the other side of whatever threshold he couldn’t get through the same as earth.

In theory, all they had to do was confirm that this was Purgatory, cementing the building theories together and determining where the Leviathan were coming through. But it felt off to just wander in, say _‘yup, it’s purgatory’_ and wander out. There were probably answers there somewhere.

He could see the river, and carved into his hunter mind the best he could the configuration of the trees and ferns around it, hoping it would react if he got near to it. He wasn’t about to try and go for soggy boots round two yet. 

* * *

“Cas couldn’t make it through?” Jack was the one interested on the other end.

_“Yeah, I think it’s because it's like earth, or heaven. Those walls are still up. Him and Rowena can’t leave theirs, even if they’re--best I understand--all part of the heavens their own way?”_

“Like how the Empty could only enter earth if it was summoned,” Sam nodded along.

Dean hadn’t known that detail, but corrected, _“The Shadow.”_

It had been beaten into him multiple times. 

_“But yeah. I guess. Maybe. I don’t know. Cas said something about thresholds later.”_

* * *

Dean mentally calculated his descent and decided to tentatively step around from _behind_ where he emerged. After all, that was where the Roadhouse was. Which he guessed was where the heart of the Garden was. Which he guessed was where Heaven’s throne was, if he was tracking all of these details of his afterlife correctly.

Despite the dark shroud of night, it didn’t take him long to find something that was _something_.

A large, dead oak bare of its leaves stood over the clearing like a skyscraper. The husked out, black goo seeping skeleton of a serpent hung from it as if crucified. Dean’s distant flashlight beams descended, as if expecting to find something. But nothing.

“Damnit, Cas, how could you not feel this?”

He swore he felt the answer. Shadows. Emptiness. Absence. Maybe the light wasn’t allowed to reach here.

Maybe all the philosophy lessons paid off. 

Dean’s light caught a ring of Leviathan Blossoms at the base of the tree. He tucked his chin. “Might as well bring home some flowers.”

* * *

Dean emerged back from the cellar, where an ex-angel had taken to frantically pacing. When the door rattled, Castiel swiveled sharply, running up to greet him and pulling him in tightly.

“Dean, I--”

“Couldn’t get through,” Dean patted him on the back in the overly tight hug, grinning, only one arm around the angel. “Yeah, I figured it out. But I got you something.”

Castiel released, looking perplexed--only to find a bunched together bouquet of disgusting looking blossoms presented with the Winchester’s best shit-eating grin on display. 

“It’s Valentine’s Day somewhere.”

Castiel didn’t know whether to hug him again or hit him, but in the end, his gaze only softened.

“Sorry to say I didn’t go all dramatic warrior with Eve and her minions or whatever to get it for you. Actually, it was pretty chill. Just a giant creepy assed tree and that wind that never stops.”

“Well, you weren’t in there for long.” 

Castiel accepted his dowry, taking it in by an armful.

“Yeah, I know,” Dean glanced around. “Let’s get inside then we’ll talk.”

Inside the Roadhouse, Castiel settled out the blossoms and stared at them, fingers knit as he meditated. Dean’s explanation of the tree was enough to connect to his previous vision through the eyes of the Leviathan stuck in Bobby’s panic room.

Victor and the others had already dispersed.

“Everything but one piece has come to bear fruit,” Castiel considered, ignoring Ash moving to and fro in the background cleaning glasses.

“And that is?”

“Eve. I saw her when I saw the rest.”

“I know Eve is the Mother of Monsters, but do you think it’s the Leviathan?”

“Well, if she’s the first monster, and they’re the first monsters,” Dean tipped his head back and forth. “But we killed her.”

“On earth,” Castiel reminded him. “She went back to Purgatory. I saw her with my own eyes.”

Dean tipped his head back and forth while he considered the theory. 

“Okay. So now the Leviathans are wanting to, what? Make it to heaven? Or just have snacks on souls?”

“Leviathan,” Castiel repeated, minus the S. “Like Moose. Not Mooses. Leviathan.” 

“Don’t know what Sam has to do with this.”

Castiel rolled his eyes and kept tracking. “So somehow when heaven was reformed and the new garden was made, the creatures of the shadow of the garden came chasing the light, as they are wont to do.”

“Yeah, maybe made them snack time.”

“Except not. Or at least, not digested. The light being cast doesn’t belong directly to the souls, but they’re still there. Their minds are there. So if we can locate all the leviathans and get them to disengorge the souls--”

“Wait, what? You mean we have to get them to like, puke it up?”

Castiel popped his brows in confirmation. “And of course figure out who opened the basement.”

“Yoooooooo,” Ash butt in from the side. “You talking about the cellar? Don’t go down there man, there’s some wild shit down there.”

Both turned to snap their heads to him. 

“You opened it?!” Dean barked.

“Naw! I mean, yeah, but it was open and I thought I could get some wicked barrels of something out of there, but there was just this creepy ass forest with gorilla dogs. Looked like someone else busted the lock before I got there,” Ash flexed. “Doctor Badass took care of it for you.”

“Well that explains why it was locked.”

Both paused, staring at each other in a silent question.

Both spontaneously scrambled back outside to re secure the latch.

They sat on either side of the cellar door, recovering.

“So what do we do now?” Dean asked.

Castiel pondered. “Well, if theory so far is correct, they’re essentially a form of conscious shadow. No soul. No individual id or ego.” 

Castiel tipped his head back to stare at the morning sky. 

“Chuck tried to create something out of the prime material, but they couldn’t self perceive, but by the time they tried to gain an identity--possibly by Eve acquiring a soul from the tree--they were--”

“Locked in the eternal thunderdome, yeah. And then Eve started making monsters.”

Castiel nodded through it. “Have we considered taking down the wall?”

“I’m sorry, come again?” Dean wasn’t sure he heard it right.

“What if they’re trying to find the light, Dean? They don’t know how. But I’ve been there--a mind without a soul. From a different direction, of course. But it calls to us.”

Dean furrowed his brows.

“Maybe we can’t take down the wall yet. But I think we can… we can fix the Leviathan.”

“Fix? Like curing a demon?”

“Yes. If you take it on a search for itself and what makes it full, rather than stealing anothers’ light--it just might break through.”

“Do we have to do it to one of them, or all of them?”

“Only one way to find out.”

* * *

Sam chuffed, accidentally inserting himself. “That’s funny.”

_“What?”_

“Oh, nothing. We had some drama on our end too.”

_“Drama?”_

“Yeah uh-- I don’t want to derail storytime with my own but apparently, Rowena’s version of hell really doesn’t sit right with those around since Lucifer.  
A bunch of demons kept crawling out of the hole begging for something to do that wasn’t new soul reception, rehabilitation, or giving her a massage." 

Sam continued, “They came pounding on the bunker door while Claire was here. I think she did a few of them a mercy by ganking the first ones before they explained what was going on.  
Either way, we kinda saw a good opportunity there. For a while we just had helper demons on basic cases, which isn’t quite the same trade as an angel but you know.  
It kept things running. But after a while we started strapping them down and uh, curing them.”

 _“You’ve been curing demons again,”_ Dean echoed.

“I mean, yeah. Figure, why not? One less evil bastard in the world. And Rowena’s really not all about the blood and mayhem anymore. Might as well give a few a shot.”

_“...Nice.”_

“Anyway, back to your story. We can talk about what’s going on with Rowena next time.”

_“Next time. I like the spirit, Sammy. You know it breaks my heart when you don’t call.”_

“Shut up,” Sam brushed off. “Story.”

* * *

Dean and Castiel made it back to Bobby’s heaven, who bitched them up and down for leaving him with a screaming mess. They talked through the basics of the idea with the old hunter-- who only half tracked the situation but decided, “If you think it’ll work.”

“But how, exactly, do we help a screaming ball of teeth find itself?” Castiel stared into Dean.

“Yeah, I don’t think hooking it up on blind dates is going to work,” Dean brooded, before mentally clicking--and gesturing through it with his hand to match. “I’ve got it.”

Neither Bobby or Castiel were very confident in that look.

* * *

Eight heavens later, there had been no success. Castiel was beginning to suspect that Dean Winchester was using the shackled Leviathan to fill out some post-mortem bucket list of his own. 

The ideas had started small, like trying to find it a spark in nice views of nature, escalating to concerts, and currently, standing in the idea of an amusement park. Half the crowd may have actually been real due to the lively appeal.

Dean won a wiffle bat from a stand, which was used more than once to scold the shrieking Leviathan for splitting its’ face open and screaming. Given, behind the safety of a muzzle they’d installed, just in case. “No eating people.”

The regents of heaven dog walked their pet Leviathan through the crowd. It was a sure way to get plenty of room and short cuts through lines, Dean noted.

If there was one takeaway from the night to be had as a keepsake, the roller coaster snapshot of an ex-angel with a loose tie over his face, an ecstatic and vibrant Dean Winchester laughing, and one open-mouthed ten thousand tooth leviathan scream caught on candid in the same row was it. And Dean slid that memento into his wallet. “That’s a keeper.”

Castiel paused, stealing the wallet and looking at it.

“Three more copies,” he ordered, mystifying the hunter.

“What was that about?” 

“Just having an idea.” 

Castiel moved on, stopping at a game hut again. Dean had to reign in the leviathan bursting for the game’s fish bowls. “No eating the fishes either! Geez. It’s like having a toddler, keeps trying to put everything in its face.”

“At least this time it’s not a dimension.”

...Dean nodded. Good point. 

The game owner eyeballed the Leviathan. “Any reason you got that thing here?”

“Heavenly… dutily… regently things,” Dean sagely offered. 

“We’re trying to be nice to it in the hopes it grows a soul,” Castiel spoke bluntly.

“Oooohkiedokie. Um. What does it like?”

“Nothing, as far as we can tell,” the ex-angel remained curt. 

“Eating people and fighting things,” the hunter was less helpful.

“Right. Uh. You lookin’ for something since you stopped?”

“I was thinking of winning it a toy,” Castiel reviewed the options, hands in his pockets. 

“Aw, that’s sweet, are we adopting again?” Dean sassed.

Cas side-eyed him, but couldn’t help but crack a grin. “Dean, generally identities are made in the first few years of life, not the first few universal cycles. But if all it’s known is this, maybe you’re on the right track, we just have to find a better way than dragging it around.”

“Okay, that’s… fair.” Dean looked up at the toys. “What to even get a Lovecraftian Monster…” He mused.

“What about the inflatable hammer?” Castiel spoke.

“What, so it can hit things, but comically?”  
“Essentially.”   
“Heh. Squeak. Okay, but something else too, just in case it pops it. I do _not_ want to see what kind of temper tantrum this thing will throw.”

“Uhh--” the shop owner spoke up. “How about you two just take whatever you want to move that thing on?”

“Maybe we should stop calling it an It or a Thing, too.” Castiel realized how it sounded coming from the gamemaster.

“Yeah! It’s not a thing, it’s--” pause. “Levi!”

“...Okay. Well take your squeaky hammer for Levi and go.”

“Nahhh man you can’t just buy love like this. You have to _fight_ for it. You have to _play_ for it.” Dean slammed down carnival tokens, and it was off to the races.

* * *

If there had been any rigging in a heavenly carnival game, the owner certainly had waived it in the interest of trying to get rid of the regents and their pet-kid-leviathan-thing. This, of course, had backfired, because as they bounced back to the Roadhouse, the entire backseat was filled with oversized stuffies, pinwheels, sticky slappy hands, ridiculous hats, and an array of carnival food that was more sprayed around the Impala than anywhere else from the Leviathan managing to shove it through its muzzle.

“Well that was-- definitely a thing,” Dean commented, glancing back. “I hope that’s easy to clean up.”

Ultimately, they settled Levi in a new addition to the upstairs, as seemed easy to imagine. If not the side access to the archives, then their own little reinforced room of forest themed bedding, wall planted plastic cover lamp domes, and iron-everything. 

“It’s the best I could come up with.” Castiel admitted. 

They sat Levi down at the edge of the bed. By now, the Leviathan had split open its face so many times, the woman it took the image of before was gone, leaving some blank faced and featureless monster. 

“Levi? I know you can hear me.” Castiel knew the Leviathan weren’t totally mindless. “We’re going to let you stay here a little while. Dean’s bringing in what we won at the fair. They’re gifts. You keep those.” 

Castiel didn’t seem to gather any kind of response. 

Dean re-emerged, dumping an impossibly large load of colorful, fuzzy paraphernalia on the floor. 

The angel continued. “But at some point, I’m going to need you to let go of any of the people you ate. We’ll get you better food, like we did at the fair, okay?”

No response. Castiel cautiously reached for the shackles, undoing them.

“Woah, you sure about that?” Dean wasn’t.

“It’s the only way to know,” Castiel went on to unlatching the muzzle, stepping back cautiously.

Still no response.

The ex-angel migrated to the dresser, reaching into his trenchcoat and pulling out a standard size photo to slide into the picture frame of their roller coaster moment. He paced the room a few times, collecting smaller fares and settling them on top of the dresser, and went so far as to fix a cat-in-the-hat hat atop the unreactive Leviathan’s head, as if to make a point to Dean.

The two shared a look. The hunter shrugged. 

They walked out of the room.

* * *

“You know,” Dean looked up to Castiel who laid on top of him, both as bare as the day any man was born. “Not to be That Person, but it’s really a boner killer to know we have a murder toddler half a door away.”

Castiel rolled his eyes. “It’s been days, Dean.”

“Oh, yeah, says the two billion year old virgin.”

Castiel sighed, slipping out of bed and ‘fixing’ his hair, which actually leaned more towards tossing it worse while collecting the grey bathrobe and pulling it around himself. “He hasn’t done anything wrong.”

“Yeah, but he hasn’t done _anything_. And it’s creepy. Just… stares at you with little pinhole eyes and a hat on.”

Castiel sighed. “I don’t know any other way to fix this then, Dean. If I can’t detect where they are in heaven, and they can move as a hive--people will just keep disappearing.”

Dean frowned, rolling to sit up, “That’s not what I meant man and you know it. Look, the idea was as good as any. And we’ll figure it out. Like we always do.”

A loud _THUMP_ came out of the side room, setting both on alert. Dean stole the trenchcoat in trade for the robe the other wore as a cacophony of noise and confusion came out of the next room.

“Do we open it?” Dean hesitantly had his hand on the door.

Castiel nodded. Dean tried to open the door, but it would only budge half an inch. Inside, there were voices--most complaining, some more abruptly with the door. 

“What the hell?”

Castiel paused, eyes closed and meditating. “...It’s… souls. A lot of them.”

“...Did Levi barf them up?”

Well, apparently there was no getting into the room, so Castiel did the next best thing--disappeared the room.

The new hole in the wall left the two half-robed figures staring down from the back end of the roadhouse’s impromptu second floor, with a spill of people littered around the apiary. “Sorry about that!” Dean called down.

The back door of the Roadhouse popped open. Ellen was the first to come out, trying to figure out why it was raining men. Looking up, she found the dangerous duo and sighed, “What did you two do now?”

“Saved heaven!”

She eyed over their state of dress. “Uh huh. Okay. At least get yourself some coffee before starting chaos today.”

Dean and Castiel traded brow-popping, chin-tucked looks and went downstairs.

* * *

At the end of the day, all the missing souls were accounted for. Just as much as the mind worked in a hive, so did the gullet, apparently. Cuthbert and Henry helped check off names on a list, polling to count every head. Cuthbert tried to reason that his noble efforts made him deserving of the extra blossoms he had seen, but Dean firmly declined. 

By the end of the day, almost everyone had filed out to head back towards their personal Blue Idahos with only a few still mulling around giving thanks.

Except one, which really didn’t have one.

Squeaky-bonk.

Castiel turned around to see the image of a young boy with a hammer. Three times his size, chewing on his fist.

“Hey, buddy. That you?” Dean took a knee, only for the kid to open-mouthed ROAR back in his face. 

No six lines of teeth or face-splitting, for once. 

“Yeah, okay Levi.” He rustled his hair. “We’ll have to figure out what to do about you.”

“Uh, Dean?” Jo glanced back from the front window. “I think we have a problem.”

Dean headed to the front, pulling the drapes apart to look out at the lawn.

A small army of toddlers with large, squeaky hammers seemed to be encircling the Roadhouse.

“Wait-- they all--” Dean looked back at Cas, “There has to be like a thousand Levis out there!” he VIVIDLY gestured towards the front.

“Well… at least they’ll just squeak if they start hitting us.”

Dean flat-out bitch-faced at the angel.

...Castiel adjusted. “So I think now would be a good time to make use of that reincarnation system.”

Dean smarmily, silently parroted back the angel’s words, mouthing ‘good time to make use of that reincarnation system’ before moving on.

* * *

 _“So anyway, that’s uh, how we ended up ending the Leviathan.”_ Dean cleared his throat on the other end of the line. _“Turns out someone named Jod decided to throw open the door and didn’t tell anyone that a bunch of spookies came blowing out.”_

Jack shiftily side eyed.

Sam was eerily quiet.

 _“You guys still there?”_ Dean tapped the receiver on his end. _“Hey, did I lose you?”_

“We’re here,” Jack spoke up first.

“So um,” Sam paused. “Before you got on this whole storytelling kick, there was something else we wanted to tell you.”

_“About hell and Rowena and curing demons? Yeah I know.”_

“No. Well that too but we’ll just do that one another time. Just uh--Eileen’s pregnant again.”

_“OH! Man Sammy! Congratulations! Look at you go, cranking out entire generations for us.”_

Sam chewed on his lip, reviewing Eileen’s wide-eyed face and her trying to argue through gesturing. “No it--listen--”

_“What?”_

“Yeah well uh. We were thinking of naming him Levi.”

All ends of the line went silent.

_“You’re kidding.”_

“No, it just kind of came to us. We looked it up and it meant ‘Joined in Harmony’ and I mean, considering all events to date--for you guys, for us--it just felt right.”

More silence aired, and Sam intently watched Patience’s lips to see if Eileen was just protesting signing at this point.

 _“...I need a drink,_ ” Dean!Patience muttered.

“Yeah. Me too,” Sam chuffed.

 _“Well uh,”_ Dean’s nerves could be heard. _“If that ain’t a fluke, you’re getting an early family portrait here soon.”_

“What?” Sam squinted. “How does that work?”

_“Karen--you know one of those new angels Jack whipped up some years back? Cas slipped her a copy to deliver. So Levi has one in his heaven whenever he comes back-- not sure how that’s gonna work out--and you guys have one, and we have one.”_

Well, that and an extra wallet copy for Dean.

“Uh--okay.”

_“So uh, don’t be surprised if he comes out liking roller coasters. And classic rock. And squeaky hammers. Oh, and get him a forest themed bedroom.”_

“So, you, if you didn’t pretend to be a badass?”

 _“Shut up,”_ Dean collected himself. _“Either way, I’m happy for you, Sammy. Anyway, I know Claire and the girls were getting impatient to talk to Jody so we’ll flag her and be on her way, call them in here.”_

“Yeah. Right. Nice talking to you, Dean.”

_“Yeah, nice talkin’ to you.”_

* * *

As the call transferred from their radio to Jody’s heaven--a system they had been developing at this point to avoid the Clown Car Patience Catastrophe all over again, Dean shot a glance to Cas. 

“Did we just knock Eileen up?”

“No,” Cas pointed out. “I’m fairly certain your brother did that.”

Dean rolled his eyes. “No shit Cas, that’s not what I--” 

He caught Cas’ smug grin as the angel ruffled his hair. The ex-angel could still get Dean hook, line and sinker with his dry humor juxtaposed to old alien ways. 

“Bastard,” Dean waved off.

* * *

Back on earth, with a newly erected nursery in earthy and forested tones, mobiles and playpens in preparation, Sam took in a breath. The doorbell summoned him downstairs, and when he answered it, the peak visual of an excitable middle-aged woman greeted him.

“Hello, Sam! My name is Karen! I’m an Angel of the Roadhouse!”

“Wh-”

“Queen Bee sent you a message, I’m not allowed to see what’s in it.” She passed an envelope. “Bye!” 

And with that, she disappeared in front of his eyes.

He blinked. “O...kay.” Sam closed the door, wandering through the ground level while opening the envelope. 

He found himself standing in the kitchen, staring at the most absurd image: a freezeframe, a snapshot, of two goons and a leviathan screaming their way through a heavenly joy ride.

...Sam Winchester attached the portrait to the refrigerator with a magnet, laughed internally, and walked away.

It would remain there for years.


End file.
